One vaccine maker is thinking about intentionally exposing volunteers to the coronavirus

[Chris Smith]

• Coronavirus vaccine trials have hit a serious snag, as there aren’t enough COVID-19 patients in the communities where volunteers might reside.
• If not enough people get sick, researchers can’t assess the effectiveness of the vaccine candidate.
• AstraZeneca, which will produce the promising Oxford vaccine, confirmed that it’s considering challenge trials where subjects are exposed to COVID-19 intentionally after being given the vaccine candidate.

More than 100 novel coronavirus vaccines are currently in development, with around 10 of them having moved to clinical trials. Companies like Moderna and CanSino made the news recently for their progress. The American and Chinese trials started several weeks ago, and both companies announced preliminary results. Only CanSino published a full paper on the Phase 1 trial. Another promising COVID-19 vaccine candidate is the one from Oxford, which started clinical trials a bit later, but is now advancing to Phases 2 and 3 of the test. Of all the COVID-19 vaccine candidates, Oxford’s is the one that could be ready for use as soon as September.

However, all of these companies have run into an unexpected issue, one that Oxford detailed a few days ago. There might not be enough sick people around to test the vaccine, which could lead to delays. The pandemic is far from being over, but there aren’t as many cases in some of the areas where these vaccines would be tested, including European countries and China. And without the pathogen moving freely inside a community where vaccine volunteers live, there’s no way for researchers to see if the vaccine works. Therefore, AstraZeneca, the pharmaceutical giant that partnered with Oxford to manufacture the vaccine, has confirmed that it’s considering infecting volunteers with SARS-CoV-2.

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One vaccine maker is thinking about intentionally exposing volunteers to the coronavirus originally appeared on BGR.com on Sun, 31 May 2020 at 10:03:35 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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